


Fourth and Long

by stillscape



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Case Fic, Gen, Hijinks & Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-07
Updated: 2014-09-07
Packaged: 2018-02-16 11:07:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2267418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillscape/pseuds/stillscape
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just one week before football season kicks off, something important vanishes from the university's athletic complex. Can anyone solve the mystery and save the day?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fourth and Long

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Missy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/gifts).



> Among Missy's requests for this exchange were "college AU" and "case fic." This may only arguably fulfill the latter, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! 
> 
> Thanks to throwingpens for all of the things, including insisting that I write a B99 college AU.

**Saturday**

Coach Jeffords surveyed the crowd and squared his already square shoulders, a broad grin spreading across his face. 

He’d been expecting some hullabaloo over the coming week, but nothing like _this_. There was an entire week to go before the season opener, a home game against their in-state rivals, and while he knew from long experience that the students took their football seriously, he was nevertheless taken aback to find hundreds of undergraduates clustered in the Nine-Nine Quad that separated the practice field (9 Brooklyn Street) from the stadium proper (9 Precinct Place). 

This was a sign. This was a _good_ sign, this show of support. It was a sign that this year, his team would no longer be the ragtag gang of misfits and losers that they always had been. This year, they would win. 

But then his ears, always sensitive, picked up a low buzz from the crowd, and he suddenly knew that something wasn’t right. 

“Coach Jeffords,” said a clipped, familiar voice behind him. A firm hand gripped Coach’s elbow. “I need to speak with you.” 

“What’s going on?”

“In your office, if you please, since we are nearer to it than we are to mine.” 

Once they were seated in Coach Jeffords’ office, Dean Holt let out a deep sigh. 

“Something funny’s happening,” said Coach. 

“Coach Jeffords…” Dean Holt sighed. It did not make his posture more relaxed. “Terry. There has been a burglary.” 

“Something got stolen?” 

“Yes, I believe that is the definition of ‘burglary,’” said Dean Holt. “The burgled item in question is, most unfortunately, our school mascot. Or more accurately, the costume for our school mascot.” 

Coach felt the blood drain from his face. “Slicey? Slicey’s gone?” 

The Dean nodded once, slowly. “I am afraid that is the case.” 

“Well, we’ve got a backup Slicey, don’t we?” 

“We do not,” stated the Dean. “The reserve Slicey costume succumbed to advanced mildew some time ago. It has not been replaced due to budgetary constraints.” 

“I can’t believe this.” Coach pressed one hand flat against his chest. Once he felt his heart still pumping at full pace, he felt slightly better. Better enough that he remembered to do his deep breathing exercises. 

Dean Holt rose. “Excuse me, Coach. I must be getting back to my office.” He crossed to the door, then paused, his fingers light against the knob. “Campus security is on the job. I am certain Slicey will be returned to us before kickoff next week.” 

“I hope so, sir.” 

The Dean left with a nod. After his door had clicked shut, Coach counted to one hundred, focusing on his breath. But he felt no calmer, and decided to hit the weight room instead. 

 

**Sunday**

“It reminds me of Slicey,” Jake said, holding his slice of pepperoni up to eye level. He didn’t have the _most_ school spirit, but he had _some_. Still, the extent of his forlornness over the stolen mascot suit had surprised Charles, who liked to imagine he knew nearly everything about his best friend. Unfortunately for all of them, the disappearance of Slicey was no excuse not to keep up one’s responsibilities. And Charles's responsibilities included keeping up with his weekly pizza-ranking column for the school paper.

A glob of cheese dripped off, landing with a quiet _splotch_ on the paper plate.

“Hmm?” said Charles, glancing up from his legal pad. 

“Looks like Slicey,” Jake said, through the mouthful of pizza he’d just taken. 

Charles shook his head. “You, my friend, are eating pepperoni on a deep dish crust. Slicey is New York-style meatball.” 

“I thought he was sausage.” 

“No, Jake, he’s always been a meatball pizza. Sausage was thought to be too suggestive.” 

“Suggestive?” 

“Sexually. You know.” 

For a long moment, Charles and Jake fell still. Then Jake chugged a good half of his 32-ounce Pepsi in one gulp as Charles went back to work. 

Jake was in the midst of the longest dry spell of his life, although Charles wasn’t sure Jake knew he knew that. He, Charles, had been in one for even longer. Possibly his whole life, now that he thought about it. For a moment, Charles tried to see himself as Rosa undoubtedly did: small, hunched over his legal pad with greasy fingers and garlic breath and what was probably not the best haircut he could have. He sighed, and went back to making notes in the margins next to the chart he’d drawn up to track everything from sauce freshness to cheese gooeyness to crust integrity.

“They better find Slicey before the game.” Jake’s last two words came out as a belch, and Charles looked up, his nostrils flaring slightly. “Sorry. Sorry about disturbing the sanctity of the pizza parlor.” 

“I’m sure they’ll find him,” said Charles. “Campus security is on it.” 

Jake took another bite of pepperoni and chewed thoughtfully. “I still like Sal’s better,” he said, before he’d bothered to swallow. 

 

**Monday**

The stadium storage room, where Slicey the meatball slice currently wasn’t, was darker and hotter than Hitchcock remembered it being. He mopped a trickle of sweat from his bald scalp, surveyed the scene a final time, and shook his head. “I think we should just tell the Dean there isn’t any evidence.” 

“Agreed,” said Scully, heaving himself to his feet from the floor, where he’d been eating a sandwich. 

Together, the two campus security officers shuffled towards the stockroom door. 

“Did you close the door?” Scully asked. “I thought I left it open.” 

Hitchcock nodded. “Didn’t want the kids interfering. They’re all nosy looky-lous these days.” 

“Good thinking,” Scully told his partner, but he changed his mind when he turned the doorknob and realized they were now locked in. 

 

**Tuesday**

“Gina, have you seen my hair dryer?”

Gina, who was (as usual) not awake yet, groaned. One hand extended from under the blankets and gave Amy the finger. 

“I’m serious,” Amy huffed, snatching Gina’s blankets off. “Come on. I know we agreed that, as roommates, we would share. But we _also_ agreed that part of sharing was putting everything back where it came from.” 

The blankets were quickly wrested out of Amy’s grasp. Gina’s head disappeared under them. 

“God, go away.” 

“Gina! I have to leave for class in--” Amy checked her alarm clock for the fourth time since she’d started looking for her hair dryer--“exactly twenty-two minutes.” 

“You know, going to class with wet hair isn’t going to kill you.” 

“It’ll dry all weird.” Amy crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot, beating out a staccato on the tile floor with the heel of her shower sandal. Her sandal was still damp, so it both squeaked and squelched, which Amy knew for a fact was exceedingly annoying. 

“All right, all right,” Gina moaned. She sat up and pointed at the corner, where a pile of her belongings had fallen over. “Look, I don’t know what happened to your hair dryer, okay? But you can borrow mine. It’s in my backpack.” 

Amy’s brow furrowed. “Why do you have a hair dryer in your backpack?” 

“I’m not an animal,” muttered Gina, rolling over to face the wall. 

Leaning over the disgusting pile, Amy soon realized that the disgusting pile was more disgusting than she could ever have imagined. 

“Gina, you have _got_ to keep your half of the room cleaner.” 

“My stuff’s not infecting your stuff.” 

“It might be,” Amy remarked. She threw a black banana peel into the garbage with the tips of two fingers, gagging slightly. 

“Hey, nice view,” said a male voice. Amy jumped upright. Her bathrobe covered her rear when she bent over, she was pretty sure of that, but _still_. “Relax, Santiago. I’m just returning this.” 

Jake Peralta stood in her doorway, leaning against the frame in what she assumed was an attempt to be cool. Her hair dryer dangled from its cord, which was wrapped around Jake’s elevated hand. 

She jumped to snatch it from him. “Where’d you get my hair dryer?” 

“Gina said I could borrow it. Hey, Gina.” 

“Hey, Jake,” said the pile of blankets. 

“Gina!” Amy snatched the blankets away again, and this time she threw them all the way over to her own side of the room. 

“Jesus, Amy. That’s a dangerous move. I could have been totally nude.” 

“Well, you’re not,” said Amy.

“Sometimes I am.”

“Ew!” Amy pressed a hand to her temple and tried not to think about her roommate sleeping naked while they were both in the room. Or actually, she didn’t want to think about Gina sleeping naked at all. “Why’d you say you didn’t know where the hair dryer was if you knew Jake had it?” 

“I knew I loaned it to Jake,” Gina drawled. “I didn’t know where it _was_. Jake has arms and legs, you know? He moves things around.” 

“Hey, I did return it promptly,” Jake pointed out. 

“What did you even need it for?” In response, he pointed at his hair, which--now that Amy looked at it--did seem a little fluffier than usual. She sighed. “Will you just go away so I can get dressed?” 

“Sure thing, Santiago.” He waved and stepped back, and Amy, by now thoroughly rankled, slammed the door in his face. 

When she opened it again, precisely nineteen minutes later, he was standing in exactly the same spot, wearing exactly the same facial expression. 

“For god’s sake, Jake--” 

“Good morning, Santiago! I thought we should try this again.” 

“No, we--”

“We _are_ going to the same class,” he pointed out. 

“Fine. We can walk together.” 

As they crossed the Nine-Nine, both looked in the direction of the football complex, where several dozen members of campus security were clustered around a side entrance, their golf carts parked haphazardly alongside an ambulance. When Jake and Amy spotted paramedics rolling out two bodies on stretchers, they looked at each other, nodded once, and began sprinting towards the commotion. 

“They’ll never tell us what’s going on,” Amy hissed. 

“Nu-uh,” Jake replied. “I’ll get it out of them somehow.” 

As it turned out, he didn’t have to try. 

Each stretcher held a campus security guard. One of the guards was bald and shirtless. The other, a large man with a flat-top, was shouting so loudly Amy probably would have been able to hear him from her dorm room. She stopped running before any of the idle guards noticed and tried to shoo them away.

“Yes, we got locked inside the supply room overnight!”

“I know him,” Jake whispered. 

“You know him?” 

He nodded. “Name’s Scully. He’s been working the day shift for years. Decades. Centuries, maybe.” 

“This university isn’t centuries old, Jake.”

“He’s in charge of the Slicey investigation.” 

They took a few steps closer, listening carefully. 

“No, we have not found any evidence at the crime scene,” Scully was yelling. “There were no clues. No evidence. We don’t have a suspect.” 

One of the paramedics appeared to address the other man, the bald one--"That's Hitchcock," Jake whispered--who stopped shouting for long enough to glance down at his crotch. Amy couldn't quite make out what he'd said, but she thought it might have been _Oh, yes, I do have a bladder condition._

She made a face. “Did he wet his pants?” She felt bad for the guy, and knew he probably couldn’t help it, but gross. 

“He did,” confirmed Jake. “Well, that’s unfortunate.”

“We should go.” Amy tugged on Jake’s shirtsleeve, and he reluctantly let her drag him away. “We’re going to be late for class.” 

“You know what this means, right?” Jake asked, as they climbed up the steps of McGinley Hall. 

“No, what?” 

“They’re not going to find Slicey in time for the game.” 

“Of course they will. They’ll put new guys on it. Or the cops will get it done. Someone did call the real cops, right?” 

“They’re not asking the right questions,” said Jake, ignoring her. 

“How do you know what questions they’re asking?” 

“I don’t.” He stopped at the top of the stairs, and--to Amy’s surprise--held the door open for her.

“Thank you, Jake.” 

He ruined the moment by bowing. “M’lady. Anyway. I think _we_ need to investigate.” 

“Um, no,” said Amy, although the idea was secretly kind of thrilling. 

“Why not? We’re in this criminal justice class together.” 

“That doesn’t make us qualified to be detectives.”

“Well, not on its own,” Jake agreed. “You’re forgetting about my highly advanced intuition and my keen sense of judgement.” 

“And _my_ attention to detail.” Wait, why was she playing along now? 

Jake grinned and held up his hand for a high-five. “We’d be great partners, Santiago. You have to admit that.” 

Amy rolled her eyes, but she returned the high five anyway. 

 

**Wednesday (barely)**

“We’re breaking and entering private property,” Amy whispered. 

“No,” Jake said, “we’re looking for _clues_.” 

Rosa tapped her fingers on the sleeve of her leather jacket. “Let’s get going. It’s one in the morning. I gotta get up early tomorrow.” 

“Why?” Jake asked, but she ignored him. He didn’t need to know about the ballet class she was taking pass/fail. 

The four of them headed off, with Jake leading and Charles bringing up the rear, right behind Rosa. She closed her eyes for a moment and prayed that Charles wasn’t trailing just because he wanted to stare at her ass. 

“You go in front,” she told him. He looked surprised, but moved forward without comment. 

“What happens if we get caught?” Amy whispered. 

“You don’t have to whisper,” said Rosa. “This is college. There’s no curfew. We’re allowed to walk around the Nine-Nine at night.” 

“We’re charting star positions for our astronomy lab,” said Jake. 

“No, we’re headed to Ludley’s for a midnight breakfast,” said Charles. 

Rosa blinked several times. When her eyes refocused, the others were still standing around like nervous high school kids about to get busted. She raised an eyebrow. 

“We’re walking around campus because we feel like walking around campus.” 

Under the glow of the nearest streetlamp, she saw Amy set her jaw and march on. 

There was no evidence of campus security around the football complex. They all scanned the area for security cameras, and found none. Jake tugged gently on the door, and it opened. 

“This isn’t even locked at night?” asked Amy, scowling at the door as though it had offended her. 

“No wonder the thieves got away with it,” Rosa muttered. 

Three idiots crept down the hallway, towards the supply room. Rosa walked normally. 

Jake pulled that door handle too; it opened with a loud _creak_. He grinned at all of them and, still facing the hallway, reached a hand inside the room to flick the light switch. 

The fluorescent lights flickered on, and Amy and Charles immediately shrieked. Even Rosa felt her heartbeat quicken. 

“Whoa,” she said. 

Jake was still grinning at all of them, the oblivious idiot. “What?”

Amy raised a shaking hand and pointed behind him, at a very familiar face that Rosa had only ever seen on TV before.

“Coach Jeffords wants to know what you all think you’re doing here. Coach Jeffords needs you to give him one good reason he shouldn’t call campus security right this instant.” 

“Um,” said Jake, now cowering slightly. “Does Coach Jeffords think we’re trying to steal the mascot again?”

“He might,” said Coach Jeffords. 

“Because we can’t exactly do that, seeing as it’s already been stolen.” 

Coach Jeffords did not look amused, and Rosa could only try not to laugh at the expressions on her friends’ faces. 

 

**Thursday**

“I can’t believe you dragged me to a party on a school night.” 

Gina crossed her arms over her chest, somewhat mirroring her cranky roommate, who was crumpled in a corner of the sofa hugging her knees to her chin. “Stay here in the corner if you want, but I’m going over there, and I’m going to fascinate some hot guys. That’s what parties are for.” 

“I have no objection to parties. Just not on Thursdays.” 

“You know you don’t even have a Friday class, right?” 

Amy blinked, apparently confused. “You know my schedule?” 

“Sure. I need to know when you’re not going to be home if I’m going to _S-E-X_ anyone.”

This produced the intended Amy Santiago Uptight Face of Disgust. 

“Besides,” Gina continued, “don’t you think this is kind of hypocritical? You were out plenty late last night.” 

“That was different,” Amy muttered. “That was for--for another thing. A _school_ thing.” 

Gina evaluated her cup of wine (it was pretty decent wine, like about eight dollarish) and decided she had enough left to stretch the conversation out a little longer. She plopped down next to Amy and draped an arm around the other girl’s shoulders. Amy recoiled slightly, and Gina allowed herself to feel satisfied about it. She didn’t dislike her roommate; in fact, she liked her quite a bit. And part of the reason she liked Amy was that Amy was far too easy to pick on.

“You guys are trying to find the stolen Slicey costume before campus security does.” She watched her roommate’s face closely as she said it, and to her delight, Amy turned pale. 

“How--how did you know? I mean, I didn’t--I wouldn’t--”

“Oh, you would and you did.” Gina smiled, stretching out her long and beautifully shaped legs.

“No, I--well, even if I did, how did you know?” 

“You’re forgetting a few things, Detective Terrible Detective.” 

Amy’s eyes narrowed. “Jake told you.” 

“He didn’t, actually.” 

“Then how did you know he called me that last night?” 

Gina tried not to snort, but she didn’t try particularly hard, and so she failed, and snorted. “I’ve known Jake since we were kids. It’s exactly the kind of thing he’d call you.” 

“And how did you know I was with Jake? And--and Rosa and Charles,” she added, like she was afraid Gina would think she and Jake were dating or something. 

A satisfied smile curled across Gina’s lips. “You’re forgetting I do my work-study in the Dean’s office.” 

At that, Amy went so pale she looked practically bloodless. “The Dean? The Dean knows we broke in?” 

“Relax, kid. He doesn’t. I just hear things, that’s all.” 

“Well, what exactly did you hear? And from whom?” Amy paused, scrunching her forehead. “Who? Whom? Whom.” 

“Ran into Coach Jeffords today,” Gina drawled. “He stopped by for a chat with the Dean. I just happened to swipe his cell phone on the way in.” 

“You stole the football coach’s phone?” 

“Not without good reason.” There _was_ a good reason, and that reason was that Coach often took shirtless selfies after hours in the weight room. “Anywho, there happened to be some texts between Coach and his wife about a group of students he’d quote-unquote--” here she made the finger gestures--“‘recruited’ to help him solve the Slicey mystery.” 

“Oh, god,” muttered Amy. Gina clapped her on the back. 

“Buck up, li’l roomie. Ol’ Linetti’s going to save the day.”

“How?” asked Amy, her voice faint. “Did _you_ steal the costume?”

“No,” said Gina, “but I bet I know who did.” 

 

**Friday**

Jake Peralta--or, as he’d decided to be for the evening, Robert van Essexburg--could not stop sneaking little glances at Amy Santiago. She had come a long way in the last couple of days. He wasn’t sure exactly what the girls had discussed in their room, late at night, but somehow Gina had convinced Amy that she could make a real difference, and Amy was now all in. Right now, she wore black leggings, a black long-sleeved leotard, and black boots. It was, he was sure, last year’s Halloween costume. She just hadn’t put the cat ear headband on. 

He grinned at her now, and she smiled back, sending even more adrenaline coursing through his veins. 

“This is exciting, huh?” 

“Totally,” said Jake. “Totally exciting.” 

“We’re sneaking onto a rival school’s property. We could get in serious trouble for this.” She sounded a little thrilled at the prospect. 

“Nah. It’s a public school. And the frat house isn’t even on school property.” 

“I meant the stealing part, Jake.” 

“Oh, well, that. Yeah. I doubt we will, though.” 

He had, accidentally on purpose, rigged the system so that they’d be partnered up during the stakeout. They sat impatiently in the getaway vehicle, parked as close as they could get to the frat house’s front porch. Charles was stationed on a nearby bench, a pizza box in his lap, earbuds in though his iPod wasn’t playing anything. They’d procured a rival school sweatshirt for him, and he looked like he belonged. Overall, Jake thought, the disguise couldn’t have been better. Charles looked sad. Not only would no passersby bother him, they would actively look in the other direction, lest they become sad by association. 

He waved at his buddy, and Charles perked up, grinned, and waved back. 

“She's about to make her move,” said Amy, giving Jake a hard poke in the shoulder. 

“Binoculars?” 

Amy passed him a pair of cheap binoculars in their school colors, procured from the bookstore that morning at exorbitant cost, and put a second pair to her own eyes. After playing with the focus for a while (it was too much fun to watch things go fuzzy and then make them clear again), Jake returned to normal vision. 

He saw Rosa knock on the frat house door, which opened. 

“What if she isn’t invited in?” Amy wondered. 

Jake scoffed. “Please. She’s a girl trying to crash a party at the lamest frat house on campus.” Sure enough, Rosa was eagerly ushered inside by a pale and pudgy arm that Jake recognized as belonging to his longtime archnemesis. 

It took only a few minutes after the front door closed for it to open again. One large, awkward, multicolored figure emerged from the frat house and started racing down the front steps. At almost the same moment, Charles jumped from the bench and began booking it to the car, blocking out foot traffic like he was a born offensive lineman. This cleared the path for a second large, awkward figure, which had just emerged from the shadows behind him. 

“That’s them!” Amy gasped. “Start the car, Jake!”

“On it.” He turned the engine over, revved the gas a couple of times for no real reason except that it sounded cool. Charles, in full run, slid into the middle of the back seat just before Slicey climbed in behind Amy and Blazey climbed in behind Jake. 

“Floor it,” ordered Slicey, and Jake did. 

“Jake, look out!” shrieked Amy, although Jake had already seen the obstacle in their path. It was short and a little dumpy and looked like it wanted to punch Jake in the face, with the arm that had ushered Rosa into the frat house. 

“Oh, crap!” He swerved, narrowly missing the guy, and then slammed on the brakes and swerved again to avoid a fire hydrant. This brought the car nearly to a halt.

“Yee-haw,” said Blazey. 

“I’m going to suggest we all buckle our seat belts,” said Charles. 

A muffled scoff came from inside Slicey. “I don’t think that’s gonna happen," said Rosa's voice. "Not with these mascot hands.” 

Just before Jake floored it again, the guy they’d almost hit pounded on the driver’s side window. “I’ll get you for this, Peralta!”

Jake hit the gas. “Peace out, Boone!” he yelled as they sped away, though he knew Boone couldn’t hear him. 

Once they were safely on the main road, they all started laughing and whooping, filling the car with a contagious energy. Jake tried to drink in as much of it as he could. 

“We did it,” said Amy, awed. “We got Slicey back.” She punched Jake’s shoulder, a surprisingly hard punch. It felt good. 

“Yeah, we did. _And_ we got revenge.” 

“I told you guys,” said Blazey--or, rather, Gina. “It’s always the rival school.” 

“Joke’s on them now,” said Rosa. “Drive faster, Jake. I wanna take this thing off. I look stupid dressed as a sausage pizza.” 

“Meatball,” corrected Jake. “Right, Charles?” 

 

**Saturday**

Dean Holt nodded at the students and supporters he passed on his way through the Nine-Nine. They could, he feared, read the sorrow on his face. Just a few short hours until kickoff, and still they had no Slicey. It was enough to make a grown man cry. He would cry later that night, perhaps, when he and Kevin settled down on the loveseat to watch _Last Week Tonight_. 

For now, he tried merely to keep his gait even, his shoulders steady. 

He entered the athletic complex. It was supposed to be empty, save for Coach Jeffords, with whom he had a meeting. The football team would be in the stadium locker room. He thought he heard multiple sets of footsteps, however. The unmistakable squeak of rubber athletic shoe soles on linoleum filled his ears. 

As he turned the next corner, his suspicions were proved correct. Five students were clustered together. They appeared to be simultaneously attempting to hide from Coach Jeffords and attempting to keep watch on his door. 

“What is the meaning of this?” he called, his voice echoing down the hallway with a pleasing authority. 

The students jumped back. He recognized one of them now. 

“Miss Linetti.” 

“Dean.” 

“What are you doing outside the coach’s office? Only student athletes are supposed to have access to the interior of this building.” 

“Relax, Dean. Coach Jeffords left his cell phone in your office last week. We’re just giving it back.” 

Dean Holt held out his hand for the phone. “In that case, I will return it to him. You all--” He glanced over the remaining four students-- “may return to your tailgate party, or whatever it is you do prior to football games.” Reluctantly, Miss Linetti handed it over. 

One of the students, a male with a rather large nose and curly dark hair, scoffed. “Please, Dean. No tailgating here. It’s all pizza, all the time.” The other students nodded. 

“I see,” said the Dean. “In honor of Slicey.” 

“Yes, sir.” This time a small, dark-haired female student had spoken. She seemed...eager. “Everyone has a favorite pizza place, and we all eat at least one slice of sausage before every game. Except for the vegetarians, of course, obviously _they_ don’t eat sausage pizza--”

“But Slicey is a meatball pizza,” said the Dean.

“Yes,” piped the other male student. “That’s exactly what I’ve been telling everybody!” 

“C’mon,” said the fifth student, a female with dark, curly hair. She wore a leather jacket, Dean Holt noticed, although the day was quite warm. “The Dean doesn’t want us here. Let’s go.” 

Reluctantly, the others followed her lead. All five of them kept casting glances back at Coach Jeffords’ office door, as though they expected something to happen. Dean Holt shook his head without any external movement. The students attending his university were getting stranger and stranger. 

He tapped on the office door, but there was no answer. This made sense, as had Coach Jeffords been in his office, the students surely would have returned the phone themselves. 

A few minutes later, Coach Jeffords approached. 

“I’m sorry, Dean. A few days ago, I set a reminder on my cell phone for me to head over here half an hour ago, but it didn't go off. Then I realized my phone was missing. I can’t find the damn thing anywhere.” 

Dean Holt held out the instrument. “I have it. A group of students was just here, attempting to deliver it to you. They claim you left it in my office earlier this week.” 

“Something suspicious is going on." 

"How so?"

"I didn’t take my phone out of my pocket last time I was in your office,” said Coach Jeffords, shaking his head. He pushed a button on the phone, then shook his head again and shoved the phone in his pocket. “Battery’s dead.”

Dean Holt gestured toward the door. “Shall we? I assume you need to return to the team very soon.” 

Coach Jeffords nodded, pulled a ring of keys from a different pocket, and unlocked his office door. 

“That’s also suspicious,” he said, when he’d pushed it open an inch. “I wouldn't have left the lights on.” 

“Nevertheless, the lights are on.” 

Coach Jeffords pushed the door all the way open. Both men immediately gasped--Coach audibly, Holt silently. Holt clutched at his chest, though, and his mouth fell wide open. 

“How in the world,” he said. 

Slicey the Meatball Slice sat, empty, in Coach Jeffords’ desk chair. Across from him, in the guest’s chair, was Blazey, the ridiculous anthropomorphic fire that served as their rival school’s mascot. Blazey had a noose around the area that might have been his neck, and he'd been gagged with a large, messy glob of wheat gluten, cheese, and tomato that Dean Holt identified by scent as the main cafeteria's version of a Hawaiian slice. Canned pineapple chunks were dribbled artfully down Blazey's front. They resembled vomit. He supposed that had been the intention.

“Dean Holt,” said Coach Jeffords, his voice full of wonder. “Dean, who were those students that were in here just now?” 

“I recognized only one of them. Gina Linetti. She performs her work-study duties in my office.” 

“Two guys. A little one and a dark-haired troublemaker. And two girls. Both dark-haired. One's tough and the other one looks like she sits in the front row and raises her hand a lot.” 

“Yes,” said Dean Holt, nodding slowly. “That seems to be an accurate description of the group.”

“They did it,” whispered the Coach. “They really did it.” 

“They did what?” 

“Never mind. Shoot. I gotta call Vulture.” 

“Who, pray tell, is Vulture?” 

“The kid who wears the suit during the game. It’s a nickname. And what are we going to do with Blazey here?” 

Dean Holt knew he should return the mascot suit to its rightful owners with a sincere apology, but the miraculous return of Slicey had made him feel...saucy. He chuckled inwardly at his own joke. 

“I think Blazey will be safe in your office until after the game,” he said. “He’s very unlikely to burn down the building. We did have new sprinklers installed just last year.”

\------------- 

Outside, in the middle of the Nine-Nine, Charles cracked open a fresh meatball pizza. Everyone grabbed a slice.

“Let’s toast,” said Jake. “To a job well done.” 

“To us,” said Rosa, holding up her slice. 

“To us,” they all echoed. 

Gina left her slice in the air for a moment longer. “Mostly to me, though.” 

 

_~ the end ~_


End file.
